Keep It Together
by Bamfderson
Summary: Kurt meets Sebastian Smythe in the hospital after Burt falls into a coma. Sebastian seems to be there all the time, but he has his own reasons. The pair grow closer in the hospital, bonding over bad coffee and cigarette smoke as feelings and secrets come spilling out.


A/N: written for Kurtbastian week on tumblr. The theme was AU or crossover and this one just wouldn't leave my mind! Reviews are always appreciated) The 'xxx's are line breaks- I looked back over this and realised that my original ones were deleted- so it probably didn't make much sense before!

Kurt is numb.

He's spent too much time watching the white walls around him, too much time drumming his slender fingers on the arm of the chair he is in. Hospitals were always the same.

Being in them brings back a barrage of unpleasant memories for him. He remembers being too small to see over the counter, being led gently through the winding corridors by his Dad to find his Mom in one of the many claustrophobic rooms. Hospitals had the habit of painting everything in pastel, clinical colours, and mint green curtains still make him shudder even after all these years. The smell, too is strong, reeking of disinfectant and room freshener that has been placed in the waiting room. He's been here since last period, since he was pulled out of class by Mr Schuester to be told that his Dad- _his Dad_- was in the hospital. Every passing hour seems like a lifetime, the ominous ticking of the clock ringing out into the tense silence of the waiting room until he can't decide whether it is exceptionally loud or whether his heartbeat is meeting the same pace.

When doctors walk into the small room his head snaps up every time. So far they have come to get a bored-looking old lady from the corner of the room and a small family huddled around a girl with a nasty looking cut on her knee. Kurt had sat and watched the others be led away, his heart sinking further every time it wasn't his turn to be told _something_, anything to stop the churning in his stomach and the buzzing in his brain.

When they come to get him, he almost wishes they hadn't.

Mr Schue's hand is warm on his shoulder, and the tone of Miss Pillsbury's voice as she asks the doctor questions is soothing. They care about him, he can tell, and he's glad that there's someone to stop him from collapsing into a sobbing mess on the floor.

But he isn't.

He's still numb.

Even when the doctor takes him to see his Dad, hooked up to tubes and machinery, he doesn't feel anything but empty. The beeping of the heart monitor blurs with the speech of those around him, words like 'coma' and 'treatment' and 'chances of survival' mixing with the steady noise of the machine.

Eventually he can't stay any longer in that small room, and excuses himself to get some water, his voice cold and foreign-sounding to his own ears. Miss Pillsbury wants to go with him, he can tell, but he's not entirely sure he won't puke on her shoes again, so he shakes his head when she offers. He walks through the door as if in a daze, taking slow measured steps back down the hallway and towards the vending machine he noticed on the way to the room.

When he reaches it, he breaks into a run.

He runs fast, shoes squeaking on the linoleum, a nurse yelling after him that the hospital has a strict policy on behavior.

He doesn't care. Out of the corner of his eyes he notices flashes of different rooms, different beds, as he races past them, old, young, sick and recovering whirling past him until he can't even distinguish where the rooms end and the walls begin anymore. Eventually he bursts through a set of double doors that he's pretty sure are for emergencies, and finds himself in the cool night air. He must have been in the hospital longer than he thought; on the way there he had stared despondently out of Mr Schuester's car window, watching the sun glint off the other cars and drivers without a care in the world make their way home to their families. That was in the day, hours ago when he had hoped that his Dad had just had stitches or something.

The cold air is like a slap in the face.

Still, it smells fresh out here, and there is no searing fluorescent lighting, so he decides that he prefers it to the eerie chill of the hospital at night. The doors slam shut behind him, and he briefly checks to make sure they don't automatically lock. They don't, and he takes a few steps forward to perch on the steps and looks around.

The back of the hospital has a small garden, clearly well looked after by the staff. Flowers that look grey in the moonlight are kept in defined borders, different shapes even if the night has rid them of colour. The grass is kept short and controlled, without any weeds poking through, unlike the grass at Kurt's home, where the clover has taken over one patch completely and bursts up in shades of velvety green, no matter how hard his Dad tries to get rid of it.

Kurt rests his head on his hands, his elbows finding place on his knees as he feels the cold of the step seep through his thin jeans. Shivering slightly, he takes in one shaky breath and raises his head, willing himself more than anything not to cry. He jumps, however, at the realization that he is not alone. The steady glow of the end of a lit cigarette hovers across the garden, golden light illuminating steady hands as the light is moved up towards the mouth of the mysterious person. For a moment the light flickers in the eyes of the person, but is then lowered back to the person's side after a stream of smoke curls into the night air. The person, who Kurt can now tell is a boy around his age, steps closer to the steps that he is sitting on, and gracefully folds himself next to Kurt, legs crossing in front of him as the cigarette dangles from his lips.

'Rough night?' His voice is deep, smooth, and Kurt wants him to keep talking forever and shut up all at the same time.

'You could say that.' His voice sounds higher than usual in comparison, and weaker than he expected it to. The other boy notices the shake in his voice and wordlessly offers him the cigarette, his left hand rising with it loose between his fingers. Kurt doesn't know why he does it, but he takes it and holds it to his mouth, inhaling shallowly before swallowing a cough and blinking. The smirk of the other boy spurs him to try again, and this time he breathes deep and slow, letting the smoke fill his throat and fall out of his mouth in a slow breath. The stinging is still there, but his suddenly dry throat is a welcome excuse to let his vision blur with tears. He passes it back and wipes his eyes surreptitiously, hoping that the boy doesn't catch the movement, but he does. Of course he does.

'I didn't think anyone else came out here. Not at this time.' Kurt doesn't reply to the boy's questioning comment, choosing instead to glare at the tulips in front of him and blink back tears. He clenches his hands together, attempting to stop them from shaking, but is unsuccessful and instead tucks them inside his jacket, arms wrapped around his torso. The boy appears to take the hint and unfolds his legs, pushing the heel of his hand into the ground for balance as he stands. The cigarette falls to the step a foot away from Kurt, and is ground into the stone by a leather boot.

When the door opens behind him Kurt turns slightly to get a look at the boy, catching a glimpse of a long, tall form and sandy brown hair in the light leaking out of the doorway. He turns back almost instantly, noticing that the tulip he had chosen to attack with his eyes was a deep blood red.

Letting his chin drop to his chest, he allows the tears to fall, pressing his hand against his mouth so that the still night doesn't carry his sobs too far.

xxx

The next night Kurt decides not to go back to the garden. His coat isn't thick enough, and he doesn't think he wants to be alone this night. When a nurse had eventually come and asked him to leave the night before, he had gone home to curl up in his bed in his empty house alone, the taste of smoke in his mouth. So here he is, folded into the chair next to his Dad's bed at eleven at night, flicking through magazines and ignoring the nurses when they come in to check if he's still there. Eventually he has to wander out in search of coffee, however, and he ends up walking along the corridor towards the vending machine again, hoping it'll dispense coffee. The heels of his boots click on the floor, and he keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead to escape the dizzying feelings of yesterday. There is a coffee machine perched next to the vending machine, but it's all out of mocha, so he has to settle for a cappuccino in a plastic cup and more sugar than he thought he would ever need. He's stirring it absently, biting his lip where he's burnt it slightly from sipping the coffee too fast, when the leather boots from yesterday slip into his vision, stopping in front of him.

He looks up to see the boy again, noting his precise hairstyle and the deep green of his eyes.

'You again.' He doesn't know why he keeps being rude to the boy; maybe because he has spent hours in the hospital and doesn't exactly feel himself to be a _people person_ right now, especially if his friends carry on with the religious crap. Kurt is irritable and upset and alone, and the last thing he wants is for someone to notice that.

'Yeah, me. The coffee here's disgusting, you know?' Kurt nods, letting the boy's voice wash over him again, soothing him almost as much as the bitter heat of the coffee he sips before he speaks.

'It's coffee, I don't care how bad it is. What are you doing here…?'

'Sebastian.'

'Okay, Sebastian, what are you doing here?' The boy smirks and leans against the coffee machine, staring up the hallway at something Kurt can't see as he goes quiet. Figuring he isn't going to get an answer, Kurt turns and walks away, not looking back as he strides back to his Dad.

The third time Kurt sees the boy –_Sebastian_- he reminds himself, it is nearly the end of the week and he has just thrown all of his friends out of the hospital. He knows they're only trying to help, but he can't deal with their own special brand of crazy right now. When Sebastian finds him he's sitting on the step again, shaking in the cold breeze.

He takes the cigarette again when Sebastian offers it.

xxx

Kurt's Dad has officially been in the coma for two weeks now, and the nervous, sympathetic glances he receives from the nurses are getting more annoying by the day. He knows why they look nervous; none of them want to be the one who has to break it to him when the time comes. And he's starting to think now that the time might come- his Dad is showing no signs of waking up and Kurt is finding it harder and harder to ignore that little bitter voice in the back of his head, whispering doubts in the dark of the hospital at night. He feels the loss of his father already, and it feels like he is drowning. He dreams at night that he is running down the hallway of the hospital away from something, but his legs are heavy and sluggish, and the vending machine isn't even in sight by the time he falls to the ground and almost through it, deaf, blind and struggling to surface. These dreams wake him up each night in a cold sweat, and he remembers the days he used to tuck himself into his father's bed at night to chase the scary dreams about his Mom away as a child.

These memories make it worse.

At the moment he's sitting in the hard plastic of the chair again, pale hands curled around a cup of murky, disgusting coffee and strands of hair falling into his face as he has foregone the usual ritual of hairspray in the mornings. His knees are tucked underneath him, his bag resting on the floor beneath his feet, and his eyes are staring aimlessly at his Dad's hand, waiting for it to twitch or clench or shake or _anything_.

He snaps out of it when a hand sets down a familiar cup in front of him, on the table that sits next to the bed. The familiar logo seems to mock him, the words standing out stark against the white cup. Looking up, he notices Sebastian wearing a uniform he doesn't recognize, face drawn as he releases the cup and turns to leave. Kurt looks at the Lima Bean cup once more and mutters his name before the other boy leaves. Sebastian nods once and leaves, the door swinging shut behind him.

xxx

Sebastian's cousin is ill. It's nothing serious, he says.

She'll wake up soon, he says.

His hands aren't as steady anymore.

xxx

The conversations he has with Sebastian in the middle of the night become Kurt's savior, as opposed to the one his friends are urging him to accept. Sebastian smells of smoke, fear and hope, and Kurt latches onto him like he's his last chance. He learns about Sebastian's school, his friends and his family. He finds out that Sebastian hates being called Seb, but likes it when his mother calls him Bas, and that in the winter he wears a Superman t-shirt under his Dalton uniform to keep warm and walks around just a little cockier than usual. Sebastian's cousin Katy wears a yellow dress every summer and she is easily amused by things like when he fell face first into his own cake on his eleventh birthday. Sebastian is adamant that she will be fine because of this.

'Seriously, there's no way she'll let a birthday go by without teasing me about it. She does every year. She'll wake up for it specially.' His hope starts to bleed into Kurt, something that he doesn't notice until one night he wakes up and realizes that Sebastian dragged him to the very end of the hallway in the dream this time. He begins to smile at the nurses, to bring homework to do rather than stare into space, and he begins to talk to his Dad. He tells him about his day, about what Finn's up to, about drama in Glee club, which is in no short supply as usual. Thanks to Sebastian, he stops thinking _if_ and starts thinking _when_.

xxx

His Dad's hand twitches that day, clasped in Kurt's own. He's not awake, not yet, but he's showing signs and it's good enough for Kurt. Nurses and doctors surround him, and do all kinds of tests to ensure that he won't slip back into his coma, but they all agree that the worst is over. He should wake up in a few days, they say, and the relief is overpowering. He smiles then, a real smile, and waits with his Dad until visiting hours have long ended, not wanting to leave. He steps outside later in search of Sebastian, staring around the small garden like he had that first night. It looks less eerie now, probably because he doesn't feel as cold as he did that first time, and for a moment he allows himself to breathe in a lungful of the fresh air, smiling a little as the scents of the flowers grow stronger, tulips and roses blending together in the warmth of the evening and lifting his spirits even higher than they were before.

It doesn't take long to find Sebastian, standing at the other end of the garden and staring up at the sky.

His mouth tastes like smoke and bitter coffee.

xxx

The universe is not on Kurt Hummel's side. Or if it is, he figures it has a very strange sense of humour.

Sebastian isn't there the next day; Kurt can't find him and a quick text reveals that his Mom kept him home to do work rather than waste away in the hospital, something he doesn't sound too happy about. That day he sits in the chair he has gotten used to, sipping bad coffee again and flicking through Vogue as he listens to the beeping of the machine and watches his Dad every couple of minutes. The day passes quietly, calmly, and when he gathers his things and leaves at night he feels weightless and happy, remembering the way he saw his Dad's hands move every now and then as he slept. In his dreams that night the hallway never once featured, his head instead full of the memory of Sebastian's hand firmly pressed against his cheek and the intake of breath as their lips had met.

The reason that Kurt is so unlucky is that the next day, when Sebastian pops his head around the door of the room and hands him a mocha with a smile and a slight 'hi', he doesn't notice his Dad's eyes flicker open, confused and bleary.

He still doesn't notice when Sebastian presses a quick kiss to his mouth and retreats to check on Katie, smiling warmly again and letting the door shut, also completely unaware of Burt's consciousness. Kurt is staring where Sebastian just was, smile fading from his face, but it drops entirely as he hears a hoarse but strong voice behind him.

'And who exactly was _that_?'

Kurt's eyes widen and he whips around, unsure whether to leap into his Dad's embrace in happiness or back slowly out of the room. He stammers out the entire story of his friend at the hospital, sinking back into his seat and refusing to meet his Dad's eyes.

If he had, he might have caught the little smile on Burt Hummel's tired face.

xxx

His Dad goes home with him a couple of days later, after an extremely awkward talk with Sebastian and a promise to the doctor to eat healthily. A list of recipes and instructions is given to Kurt, which he pockets with a smile and promises to tape to the fridge when they get home. The nurses smile and hug him, all nervousness gone now, and Sebastian wanders up the hallway to give him a tight one armed hug, whispering _text me_ in his ear before he smiles tentatively at Burt and walks away. Kurt nods immediately, wheeling his Dad along the corridor and past the vending machine, hopefully the last time he'll see the God-awful thing.

The drive home is uneventful. Burt asks about the last couple of weeks, and Kurt smiles when he tells him about Glee drama and there is a flicker of recognition in Burt's eyes, as if he has heard these stories before. He looks pale, but determined, and Kurt is confident that things will be okay.

He tapes the list to the fridge as promised, and leaves his Dad to talk to Carole for a few hours to go food shopping. When he comes back he finds them both asleep on the couch, Carole's head resting gently on his Dad's shoulder, and he smiles and decides to throw a thin blanket over both of them. They sleep for an hour more, and by that time Kurt has managed to cook a suitable meal and send a hurried text to Finn that they were having a family dinner. He shows up minutes after Kurt has started setting the table, and rubs his neck awkwardly as his tall form dominates the doorway. Kurt smiles at him and asks him to help lay the table, holding back his laugh as Finn fumbles with the spoons and calling in his Dad and Carole when he is finally ready to dish up.

It is easy, he realizes, spending time with the Hudsons. Finn still looks over guiltily at him every now and then, and Burt still shoots concerned glances at him, but for the most part the table remains cheerful, happy.

It is the first time since a long time ago that Kurt has felt like his family is whole.

xxx

'_Help_.'

The text comes just after midnight, and Kurt is blinking in the dark as his phone lights up on his nightstand. He recognizes Sebastian's name, and immediately starts pulling on clothes, loose layers that don't match as he grabs whatever is closest. He shimmies out of the window and onto the lawn, promising himself that he won't let his Dad find out about it; he doesn't need stress right now. So far his Dad has been fine- it's been three weeks since Kurt took him home and he's almost back to normal- but Kurt still can't help but worry.

He drives slowly, carefully, down the near empty roads towards the hospital, pulling up around the back just behind the fence of the garden. He sees the light of the cigarette, hauling himself down and out of his car. When he gets to Sebastian he notices the taller boy's hands are shaking so hard he can barely grip it.

'It's my birthday. Just.' Sebastian's voice sounds broken, and the moonlight illuminates the tear tracks on his face.

'I know.' Kurt has a porcelain coffee cup at home, decorated with stripes that he ordered last week in preparation, with a card too. He even went as far as to add three kisses to the bottom of the card, and buy wrapping paper that matched the cup.

Sebastian drops the cigarette and his head falls into his hands.

'She's dead.'

The words linger in the air, a shiver passing through both of the boys. Kurt thinks of the young girl that he has seen in passing over the last month or so, lying motionless and serene in a hospital bed. His hands are carding through Sebastian's hair before he even thinks to do it, pulling Sebastian into his chest and wrapping his arms around his shaking form.

The cigarette burns out on the stone beneath them.

Kurt presses a kiss to Sebastian's forehead and holds him tighter, protecting him against the sudden breeze.

xxx

When Burt finds Sebastian curled up next to Kurt on the sofa the next morning, he notices the evidence of tears on his cheeks and the deep circles under his eyes. He doesn't say anything, and sets a cup of coffee down in front of them both before leaving for work, humming as he goes and leaving a note for Carole to keep an eye on the two.

xxx

When he finds him a couple of months later in Kurt's bed, he longs for the days he kept a shotgun under the stairs. Still, the terrified look in Sebastian's eyes as Burt asks Finn to turn the hose on the pair is good enough.


End file.
